The US claims that a notification on the recent detention of Russian national Dmitrii Makarenko was sent to the Russian consulate in Seattle stand no scrutiny, because the consulate has been closed for months at the order of the US authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday

US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman on Thursday expressed his disappointment over the current state of Moscow-Washington relations, stressing the importance of bringing the ties to the level the two countries used to have.

The process of obtaining US visas in Russia has not changed yet and is still being made as difficult as possible, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said Thursday.

The electronic commerce and cloud computing company Amazon has selected two new headquarters in New York City and near Washington, DC through which it will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs, the company said in a press release on Friday.

Customers have to book by 05 November 2018, for travel between 25 October 2018 and 31 March 2019. Passengers can enjoy competitive fares to eight destinations in the US including San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Orlando, Detroit, Denver, Atlanta and Raleigh with Economy class fares starting from PKR 150,050 and Business Class fares from PKR 536,070.

The United States has extended the life of the nation's only heavy ice breaker, the Polar Star, which returned to its home port in the city of Seattle after six months in a dry dock for repairs and upgrades, the Coast Guard announced in a press release on Thursday.